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Qaeda deputy scorns Bushand warns of attack on U.S.

CAIRO — Al Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, called President George W. Bush a "butcher" and threatened a new attack in the United States in a videotape aired on Arab television Monday, his first appearance since an American airstrike against him this month in Pakistan.

Zawahri, shown in the video wearing white robes and a white turban, said the United States had ignored an offer from the Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for a truce. The video was aired on an Arab news network, Al Jazeera.

Speaking in an angry voice, he said he had a message "to the American people, who are drowning in illusions. I tell you that Bush and his gang are shedding your blood and wasting your money in frustrated adventures."

"The lion of Islam, Sheik Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, offered you a decent exit from your dilemma," he said. "But your leaders, who are keen to accumulate wealth, insist on throwing you in battles and killing your souls in Iraq and Afghanistan and - God willing - on your own land."

The video came in the wake of a Jan. 19 audiotape by bin Laden in which he warned that Al Qaeda was preparing attacks in the United States but he offered a truce "with fair conditions" to build Iraq and Afghanistan.

The tape - aired on Al Jazeera - was the first message from bin Laden in over a year.

In the video, Zawahri said the Jan. 13 airstrike in Pakistan killed "innocents" and said he had a message for "the butcher of Washington."

"Bush, you are not only defeated and a liar but, with God's help and might, a failure," he said. "You are a curse on your own nation and you have brought and will bring them only catastrophes and tragedies.

"Bush, do you know where I am? I am among the Muslim masses," he said.

The airstrike hit a building in the eastern Pakistan village of Damadola, killing four Qaeda leaders. Thirteen villagers were also killed in the strike.

The Al Jazeera newscaster said it was airing excerpts of the video, and it showed two short parts.

It was not immediately know how long the tape was.

In the excerpts, Zawahri vented fury at Bush and the American leadership.

"Your leaders responded to the initiative of Sheik Osama, may God protect him, by saying they don't negotiate with terrorists and that they are winning the war on terror," he said.

"I tell them: You liars, greedy war mongers, who is pulling out from Iraq and Afghanistan? Us or you? Whose soldiers are committing suicide because of despair? Us or you?

"You, American mother, if the Pentagon calls to tell you that your son is coming home in a coffin, then remember George Bush. And you, British wife, if the Defense Department calls you to say that your husband is returning crippled and burnt, remember Tony Blair."